<![CDATA[Colin Eatock, writer and composer

<![CDATA[Colin Eatock, writer and composer - Eatock Daily (blog)]]>Sat, 19 May 2012 15:02:29 -0500Weebly<![CDATA[Semele at the COC]]>Sat, 12 May 2012 04:51:32 -0500http://www.colineatock.com/1/post/2012/05/semele-at-the-coc.html

A scene from the COC's Semele.

I’d heard that the Canadian Opera Company’s staging of Handel’s Semele was full of surprises. And for this reason, I deliberately chose not to read any of the reviews in the press until I had the chance to see it myself, on Sunday afternoon.

And, yes, it is full of surprises – that probably work best if one experiences them as such. So let me issue a “spoiler alert.” If you haven’t seen Semele yet, and are planning to do so, you may want to stop reading this blog right now.

Still reading? Okay, I’ll continue.

Yes, this is Regietheater – although it’s not so much an ”update” (like the recent Gianni Schicchi / Florentine Tragedie double-bill), as a transposition of Handel’s opera from ancient Greece to somewhere else.

Director-designer Zhang Huan obviously put a lot of thought into how Semele could be brought into a Chinese world-view, and he was pretty clever as to how he went about it. We see, in a filmed prologue, how an old temple in a Chinese town was taken apart and re-assembled in warehouse in Shanghai, eventually finding its way (via Brussels) to the stage of Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre.

The cleverness resides in the affinities Huan finds between China and ancient Greece. Cultural revolutions notwithstanding, there are still many people in China today who believe in a pantheon of gods for whom the world of mortal humans serves as a kind battleground for their godly power-struggles. Mere mortals who enter this arena of divine conflict quickly find themselves out of their depth – usually with unfortunate results.

The people who originally built the “set” for this production would have understood Semele as a valid cautionary tale with a pertinent moral: avoid over-reaching ambition and show proper respect for supernatural forces. For this reason alone, the concept of Huan’s production is intriguing.

But did it work when mounted on a stage? That’s a complicated question, and different people would no doubt answer it in different ways.

There are some people who find an opera staging unacceptable if it deviates in any way from a literal approach to the libretto. I like to call them “operatic fundamentalists.” For instance, I recently had a post-opera discussion with a man who was irked because the COC’s last production of Tosca – the most literal opera staging I’ve seen for some time – didn’t include a pair of candlesticks set beside the body of Baron Scarpia.

To me, this isn’t sweating the small stuff – it’s sweating the miniscule stuff. Tosca isn’t an opera about candlesticks, and Semele isn’t an opera about Greek temples and togas. People who think these trappings are necessary have lost the forest in the trees.

That said, I don’t mind also saying that I’ve seen a few Regietheater productions that were unmitigated train-wrecks. Often, this is what happens when a director willfully ignores what an opera is essentially about in order to pursue some self-aggrandizing agenda.

Huan’s staging of Semele is no train-wreck – but it’s a bumpy ride. I liked the flying characters, straight out of Chinese cinema. And the sumo wrestlers (Japanese rather than Chinese, but so what?) were an entertaining diversion. But the giant inflatable Somnus (the god of sleep) up on the temple’s roof had the unfortunate effect of transforming the Four Seasons Centre into a used car lot. And the anatomically exaggerated donkey was an entirely gratuitous crudity that I could have done without.

Boldly, Huan also intervened musically – and I can only wonder what Rinaldo Alessandrini, the show’s capable conductor, thought of this incursion into his territory. While I enjoyed Tibetan singer Amchok Gompo Dhondup’s brief folk-song interlude, I found a hummed chorus of The Internationale a poor substitute for Handel’s finale.

Of course, no opera production can be better than its cast. And as with the staging, the COC’s Semele offered an uneven variety of vocal experiences.

In the title role, soprano Jane Archibald was simply outstanding. Both vocally and dramatically, her Semele was sweet and supple – and if singing Handelian roulades is ever made an Olympic sport, she’ll bring home a gold medal for Canada. Allyson McHardy, as the jealous goddess Juno, was a force to be reckoned with. I could listen to her velvety mezzo all day long.

There were fine performances also from bass-baritone Steven Humes as Cadmus and Somnus and soprano Katherine Whyte as Iris. But countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo was an underwhelming Athamas. And a complicated wobble in William Burden’s tenor voice made him unsuited to the role of Jupiter. It was also just plain annoying.

Semele brings Toronto’s opera season to a close. It was a remarkable year – surely one of the most daring and adventurous in the COC’s history. By contrast, the repertoire for 2012-13 is pretty safe stuff. But I, for one, hope that the company’s high production standards and commitment to engaging (even if not always entirely successful) direction and design will be upheld.

© Colin Eatock 2012

]]><![CDATA[Classical Music is Boring (the blog)]]>Sun, 06 May 2012 20:53:33 -0500http://www.colineatock.com/1/post/2012/05/classical-music-is-boring-the-blog.html

A scene from Classical Music is Boring.

Regular readers may know that I’ve taken quite an interest in classical music blogs. Last year, I created a website called the Big List of Classical Music Blogs (here), in which I catalogued all the blogs on the topic that I could find on the internet. When I launched the BLCMB, it contained over 300 links. Now there are more than 550.

So, to make a long story short, I’ve seen a lot of blogs – big blogs, small blogs, good blogs, bad blogs. But I’ve never seen anything quite like the Classical Music is Boring blog, which was recently brought to my attention.

It’s run by Kevin Mendoza and Bob Kasenchak, a pair of academically inclined bloggers in the San Francisco area (I believe). It’s presented in comic-strip form, with captioned photos, and features a surreal cast of human and not-so-human characters talking about music. For a self-consciously blatant display of intellectualism it’s bouncing-off-the-walls crazy. Have a look (here), and you’ll see what I mean.

© Colin Eatock 2012

]]><![CDATA[Wagner's Dream and the Met]]>Thu, 03 May 2012 11:22:34 -0500http://www.colineatock.com/1/post/2012/05/wagners-dream-and-the-met.html

"The Machine" dominates this Ring.

Yesterday I attended an advance screening of the film Wagner’s Dream, by Susan Froemke. Allow me to tell you about it.

This well produced documentary neatly traces the collaboration of Canadian designer Robert Lepage and the Metropolitan Opera from its inception to the final staging of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

One of the most interesting bits is near the beginning, when we learn that Lepage’s inspiration for his 45-ton moving set (commonly known as “the Machine”) was the broken and shifting landscape of Iceland. I’m not sure if this revelation makes the Machine seem more appropriate to a Ring staging, but at least we know where the idea came from.

Just as the Met’s Ring Cycle is dominated by the Machine, so too is Wagner’s Dream. And, without doubt, the film does a fine job of showing how Lepage’s set works. The camera admiringly captures it in all its elegance, grandeur and brute force. We see it from the front and the back, up close and at a distance. It is indeed a fascinating and impressive thing. However, this is exactly what some critics say is wrong with the Machine: it so completely overwhelms the production that other aspects of this Ring (i.e. the singing and acting) are in its shadow.

Similarly, the mere humans in this film – Lepage, general director Peter Gelb, conductor James Levine, and even such major opera stars as Bryn Terfel and Deborah Voigt – are dwarfed in comparison with the Machine. Their petty concerns are nothing compared with the kinetic imperatives of the set’s massive planks.

Most of the “unpleasant” parts of the film – obstacles, conflicts, disasters and near disasters – are concerned with the most obvious challenges this Ring has faced. It’s well known that the Machine didn’t operate as planned on the opening night of Rheingold. And everyone who cares to know already knows that Voigt tripped and fell on the stage during Die Walküre, and that Jay Hunter Morris had to step in at the last minute as Siegfried.

However, what about problems that are less obvious? Can Froemke tell us anything we don’t already know?

The kind of behind-the-scenes tensions that the best documentaries sink their teeth into are only hinted at here. We see Lepage expressing a soupçon of frustration at the Met’s stagehands’ attempts to operate the Machine. We see a nervous character (either Fasolt or Fafner – it’s hard to tell) very sensibly expressing doubts about his personal safety during a rehearsal of Rheingold. And we see a few short interviews with unhappy Met patrons who don’t get what Lepage is getting at.

What we don’t see is trenchant commentary from any of the critics who have lined up against the Met’s Ring, or against Gelb’s administration at the Met. (See here and here.) We also don’t see much intense discussion between Lepage and Gelb about the Machine’s ongoing problems – or get a sense of the weight of responsibility they jointly shoulder (which, in financial terms alone, is enormous). Nor for that matter do we see any kind of backstage drama that rises above a tepid temperature.

In the end, Wagner’s Dream looks like two hours of slick, sanitized, pro-Met propaganda. I don’t know if that’s what Froemke intended from the outset, or whether it just came out this way. And I’m left wondering how much access she had to all that was happening inside the Met as this Ring was prepared for staging – and what kind of “deal” she had to strike to get any access at all.

© Colin Eatock 2012

]]><![CDATA[Zemlinsky and Puccini at the COC]]>Wed, 02 May 2012 15:57:54 -0500http://www.colineatock.com/1/post/2012/05/zemlinsky-and-puccini-at-the-coc.html

Zemlinsky's Florentine Tragedy at the COC.

Here’s my review of the Canadian Opera Company’s double-bill of A Florentine Tragedy and Gianni Schicchi, still warm from yesterday’s Globe and Mail.

Ever since Giacomo Puccini wrote the three one-act operas in his Il Trittico, opera companies have been mixing and matching them with short works by other composers.

The Canadian Opera Company’s current pairing – Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi with Alexander Zemlinsky’s A Florentine Tragedy – opened at the Four Seasons Centre on Thursday. It makes a lot of sense, for several reasons.

Most obviously, both are set in Florence. Also, both are products of the early 20th century. But beneath the surface there are other connections: both are about the choices people make at the dubious crossroads where love and money meet.

In the hands of singer-turned-director Catherine Malfitano, the operas were brought from the Renaissance to modern times – Zemlinsky’s to the 1920s and Puccini’s to the present day. Happily, they came through the time machine intact, and with value added. Through her updated stagings, Malfitano persuasively argues that human nature hasn’t changed much in the last 500 years.

Leaving the familiar to the last, the COC opened its double-bill with Zemlinsky’s rarely heard A Florentine Tragedy. There are only three characters in the cast – yet in Max Meyerfeld’s libretto (based on the play by Oscar Wilde) this little triangle is a hornet’s nest of emotion.

When the merchant Simone comes home to find Prince Guido Bardi with his wife, Bianca, everyone at first behaves as though nothing is amiss. But one thing leads to another – and soon the men are at drawn swords, with Bianca urging the Prince to kill her husband.

All three singers rose to the occasion, with taut and edgy performances. Bass-baritone Alan Held’s Simone had an iron fist in his velvet glove, and was a commanding figure both vocally and dramatically. And with his strong but supple tenor voice, Michael König conveyed the easy power and ready contempt of a man born to privilege. As the abused wife Bianca, soprano Gun-Brit Barkmin spent much of the time seething in silent rage. But when opportunities arose to shine vocally, she seemed challenged by Zemlinsky’s complex harmonies.

However, conductor Sir Andrew Davis and the COC Orchestra delved effectively into Zemlinsky’s multilayered and tonally sophisticated score. Under Davis, foreground ideas were separated from backgrounds, and tempos always moved the music forward.

In Gianni Schicchi, Davis took his orchestra on a romp, underscoring all the hijinks in this screwball-comedy of an opera. And Malfitano’s eye for detail and timing made the show run with the zany precision of a Rube Goldberg machine.

Designer Wilson Chin’s set for A Florentine Tragedy – an elegantly simple grey interior – returned in a reconfigured state for Gianni Schicchi, piled high with household junk. When a dysfunctional family was added to the mess, the result was like a mash-up of Hoarders and The Sopranos.

Also returning to the stage for the second half of the COC’s double bill was Held, as Schicchi – making the transition from enraged cuckold to clever trickster with ease.

Gianni Schicchi also featured a fine performance from tenor René Barbera, as a sincere and ardent Rinuccio. His clear, ringing voice makes him the perfect fellow to get the girl in an Italian opera.

And last, but not least, Simone Osborne lived the dream of every young soprano by singing O mio babbino caro at centre stage in a packed opera house. Much to her credit, her delivery was sweet and simple – without the distortions that sometimes mar this aria.

Adding lustre to this new double bill is the fact that it’s a company-built production, not a rental. Congratulations to the COC – this one’s a keeper.

© Colin Eatock 2012

]]><![CDATA[Oundjian and Perlman at the TSO]]>Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:45:34 -0500http://www.colineatock.com/1/post/2012/04/oundjian-and-perlman-at-the-tso.html

Teacher and student, together in Toronto.

The music was by Mozart, Bach and Tchaikovsky – but the TSO’s concert on Saturday night was really all about two living musicians.

The two musicians were Peter Oundjian and Itzhak Perlman, sharing the stage at Roy Thomson Hall. However, their usual roles were reversed: Oundjian, the TSO’s music director for the last eight years, appeared as a “guest” violinist; and for most of the concert, virtuoso-violinist Perlman served as the TSO’s conductor.

The two men’s lives have intersected over the years – and, to underscore this point, they took a few minutes to reminisce, just before the intermission. Perlman was Oundjian’s teacher at the Juilliard School, and since then they’ve often worked together as colleagues.

But Oundjian and Perlman have something else in common: Both have struggled with physical problems that have influenced their careers.

In Perlman’s case, his disability is obvious and well known. Afflicted with polio at the age of four, he walks with crutches, and plays and conducts seated. He’s admired not just for his artistry, but also as proof of the power of talent and determination over adversity.

Oundjian’s condition is hidden from view. Although he excelled as a violinist in his younger years – spending 14 seasons as first violinist with the Tokyo Quartet – he developed focal dystonia in his left hand in the early 1990s. When the neurological condition made it impossible to continue with the violin, he turned to conducting.

Before Saturday night, Oundjian hadn’t played in public for 17 years. So when he stood next to his old teacher to perform with him in Bach’s Concerto in D Minor for Two Violins and String Orchestra (backed by a contingent of strings from the TSO), the anticipation in the hall was palpable. No doubt, some audience-members were hoping for a big comeback.

Indeed, that would have been a fine thing.

In many ways, Oundjian and Perlman were aptly suited as duet partners. In the Bach concerto, both men favoured long lines, a touch of vibrato (in the second movement) and a sweet tone.

Unfortunately, pitch was sometimes a different matter: From the opening, Oundjian’s intonation was not always secure. There was improvement in the subsequent movements – but, overall, Oundjian’s performance was more a tentative testing of the waters than a miraculous return in triumph.

At this point, it’s not clear what – or how much – the TSO’s music director hopes to regain from his former life as a violinist. Last year, when it was announced that he’d once again play in public, he downplayed his ambitions.

“It’s a one-off performance,” he told the Globe and Mail. “I’m going to make myself practice, and reorganize my left hand. If I don’t force myself to do it, it isn’t going to happen.”

Of course, some people achieve remarkable things in the face of seemingly insurmountable physical obstacles. (We need look no further than Perlman.) But whether or not Oundjian will – or even aspires to be – one of those people remains to be seen.

As for Perlman the conductor, he got the concert off to a good start, leading the TSO in a bright and robust performance of Mozart’s overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio. And with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, he and the TSO brought the evening to a satisfying conclusion.

From his chair on the podium, Perlman lavished attention on the orchestra’s string section, and they rose to the occasion with an ardent and impassioned performance. Also impressive was Neil Deland’s flawlessly smooth rendering of the big horn solo in the second movement.

© Colin Eatock 2012

]]><![CDATA[Shakespeare as a Music Critic]]>Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:48:59 -0500http://www.colineatock.com/1/post/2012/04/shakespeare-as-a-music-critic.html

"Thou droning full gorged infection!"

I’ve just learned that the mayor of Chicago has declared April 23 to be “Talk Like Shakespeare Day.” (See here.)

The date is aptly chosen, as it’s Shakespeare’s birthday. However, it’s not clear by what authority Chicago’s mayor has made this proclamation. And, having visited the Windy City once or twice, I find it hard to imagine any place where people generally speak less like the Bard of Avon.

But let us set these concerns aside. On Shakepeare’s 448th birthday, I’d much rather consider what kind of kind of music critic he would have made if he lived today. He certainly had a way with words – especially nasty ones – and I suspect he might have come up with a few phrases that would have made Nicholas Slonimsky’s Lexicon of Musical Invective read like The Ladies’ Home Journal.

For instance, Shakespeare wouldn’t have minced words with Pierre Boulez. No doubt, he would have called the French composer/conductor a “gleeking folly-fallen eunuch,” or perhaps even a “perfidious spur-galled harpy.”

Similarly, if the Russian maestro Valery Gergiev ever found himself in Shakespeare’s bad books, he’d get a verbal drubbing with phrases like “churlish motley-minded tyrant,” and “withered onion-eyed horn-beast.”

Who else would be grist for Shakespeare’s mill? How’s about Placido Domingo – an “unmuzzled urchin-snouted hedge-pig,” on a bad night? Even Yo-Yo Ma might be mercilessly skewered as a “pribbling clay-brained wag-tail,” or a “sanctimonious beetle-headed varlet.”

As for Peter Gelb – the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager, whose tenure has been much criticized of late – he could expect something like “mumbling toad-spotted mangy-dog.” And if he didn’t soon mend his ways, the gloves would come off, with “loathed shard-borne maggot-pie” and “abominable earth-vexing bugbear.”

In short, Shakespeare would show today’s music critics how it’s done. And although he departed for the Great Theatre in the Sky long ago, his inspiring words are still with us.

So, critics of the world, the next time you feel inclined to call a musician “uninteresting,” or “lacking in appeal,” or some other banal epithet, just turn to the Shakespearean Insults Generator (here) – and let the Bard guide your hand.

© Colin Eatock 2012

]]><![CDATA[Tokyo Quartet to Retire]]>Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:09:03 -0500http://www.colineatock.com/1/post/2012/04/tokyo-quartet-to-retire.html

The Tokyo String Quartet.

This just in: the Tokyo String Quartet will disband at the end of the 2012-13 season.

The news comes as a bit of a shock. Only a few months ago the quartet announced it would be replacing retiring violist Kazuhide Isomura and second violinist Kikuei Ikeda with new players.

In the official announcement (which you can read here) no reason was given for the decision to dissolve the ensemble. Perhaps suitable replacements could not be found. Or perhaps Yale University decided it no longer wanted a prestigious quartet-in-residence. Or perhaps the quartet’s management, Opus 3, discovered that presenters didn’t want to engage a Tokyo Quartet that didn’t include Isomura and Ikeda.

Yet all of these theories strike me as unlikely, in varying degrees.

Personally, I like to think that the quartet, founded in 1969, decided to pack it in because they realized that any new configuration that didn’t include any of the original members just wouldn’t be the Tokyo Quartet. (I hammered on this point in a blog back in November, which you can read here.)

If so, their decision is a triumph of artistic integrity over marketing expedience – and I applaud them for it.

I’m tempted to add something about hoping the individual members of the quartet will continue to have active careers in chamber music. But I’m sure that’s hardly necessary.

© Colin Eatock 2012

]]><![CDATA[Opera Atelier's Armide]]>Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:31:45 -0500http://www.colineatock.com/1/post/2012/04/opera-ateliers-armide.html

A scene from Opera Atelier's Armide.

Here’s my review from today’s Globe and Mail newspaper.

When Toronto’s Opera Atelier announced that its production of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Armide would be touring to Paris this spring, it sounded like a big step.

But, as anyone who attends Armide will learn, the big step looks to be a surefooted one. Toronto’s “period” baroque opera company has drawn on resources it’s built up over the years to remount a 2005 production that’s firing on all cylinders.

This Armide boasts a stellar cast of singers, plenty of artfully integrated dances, sumptuous sets and costumes, fine playing in the orchestra pit, and insightful stage direction that gets to the heart of the matter.

The heart of the matter, as underscored by director Marshall Pynkoski, is love. And unlike many baroque operas – full of twists, turns and complex subplots – Armide (with a libretto by Phillippe Quinault) is strikingly direct.

During the Crusades, the enchantress Armide attempts to ensnare the knight Renaud, but ends up falling for him. She thinks she’s being merciful in choosing love over hate, but she soon discovers that love can be much crueler.

Opera Atelier couldn’t have done better, for the title role, than soprano Peggy Kriha Dye. Her talents come as no surprise: This is her 10th production with the company, and she’s well known for her command of baroque style. On Tuesday night, her phrases were well shaped, intonation was excellent in all registers and her sheer stamina was impressive. (She’s on stage, singing, for most of this opera’s five acts.)

Adding to all this was her dramatic mastery of this complex role. Her Armide was wary yet trusting, impervious yet vulnerable, and fearsome yet pitiable – all at the same time.

Opposite her, as Renaud, was tenor Colin Ainsworth, also a veteran of many Opera Atelier productions. Throughout, his voice was bright, clear and supple. His character was perhaps less complicated than poor Armide, but when he chose duty over love his inward struggle was poignant and convincing.

There were more gems in the cast. Mezzo-soprano Meghan Lindsay virtually owned the “enchanted forest” scene, with her pure, lyrical delivery; and soprano Carla Huhtanen was a charming and delicate-voiced apparition. Joao Fernandes, as Hidraot (Armide’s uncle), lent gravity to his scenes with his rich and sonorous bass.

A short but powerful scene featured the stentorian bass Curtis Sullivan as La Haine (Hate). Love was represented, too – not by a singer, but by dancer Jack Rennie, who seemed quite unencumbered by the large pair of wings strapped to his back.

There was also comic relief, thanks to tenor Aaron Ferguson and baritone Olivier LaQuerre – two knights who shrieked and howled at imaginary monsters in the orchestra pit.

In fact, the pit was inhabited by Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, elegant and nimble under David Fallis, especially in the many dances choreographed by Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, such as the lilting minuet with castanets and finger-cymbals.

Gerard Gauci’s Persian-inspired scenery transforms Armide into a grand spectacle. So, too, do Dora Rust D’Eye’s Bollywood-coloured costumes for the cast and dancers – although the chorus was clad in black, and kept offstage. From a side balcony the chorus was a discreet yet musically effective presence.

From May 11 to 13 this production will be remounted at the Royal Theatre at Versailles, where Armide was first staged in 1686. If the ghost of Lully still haunts the theatre, he should be well pleased by what he hears and sees.

© Colin Eatock 2012

]]><![CDATA[Interview with Jon Kimura Parker]]>Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:19:53 -0500http://www.colineatock.com/1/post/2012/04/post-title-click-and-type-to-edit3.html

Pianist Jon Kimura Parker

Here is an interview with Jon Kimura Parker that I wrote for today’s Houston Chronicle.

Like most concert pianists, Houston’s Jon Kimura Parker gives performances all over the world. This season alone, his engagements take him from England to Hawaii.

Yet Friday-Sunday he’ll be commuting between Jones Hall and his home in Southampton to play Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, with the Houston Symphony and guest conductor Pablo Heras-Casado.

“It’s funny to be living here and to be driving to rehearsals from my home,” he says from his studio at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where he teaches. “I was thinking I should pack a suitcase and drive to the airport and back – just to get in the right mood.”

A concerto gig with the Houston Symphony is nothing new for Parker. Since 1994, he’s appeared with the orchestra six times, in repertoire ranging from Mozart to Gershwin.

In fact, it was through his first performances with the Houston Symphony that Parker got to know Houston. His warm reception encouraged him to move his family to the city, from New York, 11 years ago.

However, it was a hard decision at the time.

“In 1999, I was approached by several faculty members at Rice,” he recalls. “They said, ‘There’s an opening for a piano professor – would you be interested?’ I wrote back and said, ‘I’m not really sure. I live in New York, my wife is a very successful freelance musician here, and we’ve just had a baby.’”

He accepted Rice’s offer – with “a tiny amount of paranoia about leaving New York” – but soon found his fears of career death were quite unfounded.

“In the end, it didn’t really matter. The whole notion that a classical musician has to live within a stone’s throw of Carnegie Hall just isn’t true anymore. And I soon discovered very quickly that there are all sorts of exciting things going on in music all over the country that don’t happen in New York.”

Despite his absence from Manhattan Island, Parker continues to perform there regularly. On April 24, he’ll appear in a program presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Parker isn’t a native New Yorker. He’s originally from Vancouver, B.C., and is well known in Canada for his performances from one end of the country to the other – even in the Arctic territories. As well, he’s from a remarkably musical family. Jon (or “Jackie,” to friends and family) is the oldest musician in his generation. His younger brother, James Parker, is the pianist in Toronto’s Gryphon Trio – and a cousin, Ian Parker, is a pianist who divides his time between New York and Vancouver.

Today, Parker finds his teaching position at Rice very rewarding.

“I have a wonderful class of students,” he says. “They’re spectacularly gifted. One of them is giving his New York debut this month, and another just gave his Paris debut. And what’s particularly exciting for me is preparing them to perform – because the preparation is something I’ve had a lot of experience with. I’ve been there, and I know what they’re going through.”

And Parker and his family have put down roots. His wife, Aloysia Friedmann, is a violinist and violist who plays with the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra and the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra. (She’s also the director of the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival in Washington.) Their daughter, Sophie, is now in the seventh grade and enjoys singing in the HGO’s children’s chorus.

“We just got a puppy,” Parker adds, “so I’m discovering that Houston has lots of good dog parks.”

He’s also earned the admiration of Houston’s musical community, through his concerto appearances, solo recitals and chamber-music performances.

William VerMeulen, principal hornist of the Houston Symphony, says Parker is one of the finest classical musicians in town.

“Jackie is unique,” he says, comparing him with several other piano legends. “He combines the technique of Vladimir Horowitz with the touch of Artur Schnabel – and the stage personality of Elton John. With the Houston Symphony, he’s always a stand-out.”

Looking back on his arrival in Houston, Parker had one more worry – which happily proved unfounded. Ironically, he was afraid that his move to the city could spell the end to his engagements with the Houston Symphony.

“It’s standard practice,” he explains, “for orchestras to have some sort of exclusivity agreement that states the soloist can’t perform in the same city for several months before and after their engagements with the orchestra. So when I moved to Houston, I made the assumption that my days as a Houston Symphony soloist were numbered because I perform at Rice several times a year.”

But for Parker, the Houston Symphony has waived the usual exclusivity conditions.

“I’m very touched that the Houston Symphony still engages me as a soloist,” he says. “It means a lot to me personally to play with this orchestra.”

© Colin Eatock 2012

]]><![CDATA[Operatic Fathers and Sons]]>Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:38:41 -0500http://www.colineatock.com/1/post/2012/04/operatic-fathers-and-sons.html

John Relyea, son of Gary Relyea.

Here’s something that I wrote for today’s Globe and Mail newspaper. And here’s a trivia challenge: John and Gary Relyea have only once appeared in the same opera production. Can anyone name it?

Samuel Johnson famously called opera “an exotic and irrational entertainment,” but there are a few people in the world who can also justifiably call it something else: the family business.

John Relyea is one such person. Born in Toronto 40 years ago, the bass-baritone has done very well for himself, with engagements at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, London’s Covent Garden and prestigious opera houses in Paris, Vienna, Munich, San Francisco and Chicago.

His appearance as the four villains in the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann (which opened this week) marks his COC debut, but for Toronto’s veteran opera fans his name is already familiar. He’s the son of bass-baritone Gary Relyea, who appeared with the COC on a regular basis from 1972 to 1995.

“When I tell people about my upbringing, it all sounds very unusual,” Relyea says in an interview between rehearsals at the COC’s headquarters on Front Street East. “But to me it seemed normal. And I was there, soaking it all in by osmosis. So I always knew I’d go into music in some way.”

For the teenaged Relyea, growing up in Toronto, the only uncertainty was deciding what kind of musician he’d become. First he studied piano, and then guitar. But when he started taking singing lessons from his father, the penny dropped.

“It all came to me so quickly that I took it as a sign,” he recalled. It was then that he decided to become a singer.

Relyea readily acknowledges that coming from an operatic family had its advantages. But, in his experience, these advantages have their limits.

“I was lucky to have access to family connections,” he admits. “My father would call up his conductor friends and ask them to hear me sing. But I still had to audition for everything I got. Nobody said, ‘Oh, you’re Gary Relyea’s son – come on in.’ It wasn’t like that at all.”

As well, he points out that a downside of having an opera-singing parent was his father’s lengthy absences from home, as Relyea senior travelled the world from one performance to the next. This is an issue that the younger Relyea has seen from two sides now that he himself is a father of two and is away from his Rhode Island home for nine or 10 months a year.

“It’s a lot to ask your kids to understand,” he says. “I can remember my dad going off to his engagements – it’s a hard thing for kids to get their heads around.”

The Relyeas are not the only intergenerational opera family in Canada. The name of baritone Gino Quilico will, for older opera fans, immediately invoke his father, the late baritone Louis Quilico, who enjoyed a distinguished operatic career.

The younger Quilico, who calls Montreal home, has a personal story that in some ways resembles John Relyea’s. Like Relyea, he was attracted to various kinds of music in his teens – and then one day turned to his father, to ask for his guidance in becoming an opera singer.

And like Relyea, Quilico found that being a famous singer’s son sometimes had a very specific impact on his career.

“It was more difficult because I had to prove myself a lot,” he says. “People expected things from me. And sometimes I would run into a conductor or a director who hated me, and I wouldn’t know why. Then I’d talk to my father and find out that he’d had a fight with that person, years ago.”

Unlike Relyea and Quilico, whose fathers encouraged their vocal ambitions, another Canadian baritone, Russell Braun, found himself unsupported by his opera-singing father, the late Victor Braun.

“My mother was encouraging,” he says, recalling his childhood in Germany. “But my father didn’t really want me to pursue music. He didn’t quite believe that I had the right kind of cutthroat personality for opera.”

Nevertheless, Braun – who now lives in Georgetown, Ont. – felt his father’s presence when he pressed forward with his operatic ambitions.

“When I auditioned for German theatres, I was remembered as the son of Victor Braun. But that sort of thing only works in your favour if you sing well.”

Today all three of these second-generation opera singers feel that their musical families were both enriching and challenging. And they’ve learned to take their backgrounds in stride.

“You have to get used to the fact that comparisons will be made,” Relyea says. “So you have to establish your own identity as a singer.”

© Colin Eatock 2012

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